Motel - Film, TV and Stage Depictions

Film, TV and Stage Depictions

The Bates Motel is an important part of Psycho, a 1959 novel by Robert Bloch, and Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film, Psycho. Film sequels, Psycho II and Psycho III, also feature the motel, as does the 1987 television movie Bates Motel. The motel makes appearances in Psycho IV: The Beginning, but is not featured as much as in previous films. The Bates Motel returned to prominence in the 1998 remake of the original film. In the 2010 Halloween TV special Scared Shrekless, a character tells a scary tale about the Boots Motel.

The scenario of an isolated motel being operated by a serial killer, whose guests subsequently become victims, has been exploited in a number of other horror films, notably Motel Hell (1980) and Mountaintop Motel Massacre (1986). More recently, the genre has been revived with such films as Mayhem Motel (2001), Murder Inn (2005), Vacancy (2007), and its direct-to-video prequel, Vacancy 2: The First Cut (2009).

Several of these horror films also incorporate the sub-theme of voyeurism, whereby the motel owner spies on (or even films) the sexual exploits of the guests. This plays on the long-established connotations of motels and illicit sexual activity, which has itself formed the basis for numerous other films, variously representing the thriller, comedy, teen film and sexploitation genres. Stephen C. Apostolof's Motel Confidential (1967) and the porn film Motel for Lovers (1970) were two notable early examples. More recent manifestations include Paradise Motel (1985), Talking Walls (1987), Desire and Hell at Sunset Motel (1991) and the Korean films Motel Cactus (1997) and The Motel (2005).

In countless other movies and TV series, the motel – invariably depicted as an isolated, rundown and seedy establishment – has served as the setting for sordid events often involving equally sordid characters. Examples include Pink Motel (1982), Motel Blue 19 (1993), Backroad Motel (2001), Stateline Motel (2003), Niagara Motel (2006) and Motel 5150 (2008).

In TV's The Simpsons, the Sleep Eazy Motel signage displays its name with missing neon lighting segments, "Sleep-Eazy Motel", a sleazy motel advertising hourly rates and adult movies. The cockroach motel and no-tell motel stereotypes continue with various motels in the series, including the Happy Earwig Motel and Worst Western.

In the film Sparkle Lite Motel (2006) and the TV miniseries The Lost Room (2006), the motel made forays into the realms of science fiction. In the Pixar animation Cars (2006), a clientele of solely anthropomorphic vehicles requires all hotels be motels where clients drive directly to their rooms; clever allusions to real Route 66 motels on the US National Register of Historic Places abound. The Cozy Cone Motel design is the Wigwam Motel on U.S. Route 66 in Arizona with the neon "100% Refrigerated Air" slogan of Tucumcari, New Mexico's Blue Swallow Motel; the Wheel Well Motel's name alludes to the restored stone-cabin Wagon Wheel Motel in Cuba, Missouri. A long-defunct "Glenn Rio Motel" recalls Route 66 ghost town Glenrio, New Mexico and Texas, now a national historic district on the state line. Glenrio once boasted the "First Motel in Texas" (as seen when arriving from New Mexico) or "Last Motel in Texas" (the same motel, its signage viewed from the opposite side).

In literature, Ian Fleming's The Spy Who Loved Me (1962) depicts a French-Canadian Vivienne Michel as a clerk minding the doomed Dreamy Pines Motor Court in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State. Unlike most of Fleming's work, this storyline does not appear in any of the James Bond films.

In computer gaming, Murder Motel was an online text game by Sean D. Wagle, hosted on various dial-up bulletin board systems (1980s, originally Color64, ported to various other platforms). The object was for each player to attempt to brutally kill all fellow guests in each room of a motel using a variety of weapons.

In the theatre, the seedy motel room has been the setting for two-hander plays such as Same Time, Next Year (1975) and Bug (2006). Both were later adapted as films. Broadway musicals have also paid homage to the lowbrow reputation of motel culture, demonstrated by songs such as 'The No-Tel Motel' from Prettybelle and 'At the Bed-D-by Motel' from Lolita, My Love.